Dorset LEP invests £1.3m in local colleges

Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (Dorset LEP) is to invest more than £1.3m in three local colleges and a university.

According to the LEP, the funding will help to address key skills gaps and unlock talent and ambition across the local community.

Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) will receive £51,000 to buy new laptops and a secure locker unit.

Kingston Maurward College (KMC), Dorchester, has been allocated £111,000 to build an Outdoor Education Centre and undertake refurbishment works.

The new centre will include a bouldering climbing wall, along with a refurbished commercial kitchen and improved access roads.

Weymouth College will introduce an Engineering Centre of Excellence to Dorset thanks to a £605,000 investment, which will vastly improve advanced engineering teaching capabilities.

Plans include a new digital media suite, allowing students to develop computer-aided-design and modelling skills.

There are also plans to advance the College’s Electrical Engineering Centre at their Poundbury Campus, as well as the machinery and IT equipment available within the Centre of Excellence for Motor Vehicle Technology project recently completed, also supported by Dorset LEP.

Finally, £610,000 of skills funding from Dorset LEP will support Bournemouth & Poole College (BPC) in establishing an Engineering Centre of Excellence in Dorset by increasing their engineering & manufacturing offering.

This will involve the refurbishment of an existing building on Fulcrum Business Park for engineering and advanced manufacturing skills training and the creation of a workspace construction hub at BCP College’s North Road campus.

‘Increasing the local education skills offering and competitiveness is of great importance in consolidating Dorset as a great place to learn, and then work. In particular, these four projects demonstrate investment in the areas of arts, land-based studies and engineering & manufacturing,’ said Dorset LEP director, Lorna Carver.